Supercharge your ACT skills

You know the six processes. You can define defusion, unpack values, talk fluently about acceptance and committed action. Knowing a model and using it, live, are very different things. When a session slides sideways and the exercise you planned suddenly doesn’t fit. Russ Harris closes that gap. In this two-day in-person workshop, he will teach you how to build the moment-to-moment fluency that turns ACT knowledge into ACT practice. 

Background to the workshop 

You might have learned and neatly defined the six ACT processes, with exercises and metaphors prepped for each, but that doesn’t always prepare you for what can actually happen in the therapy room. 

Here’s what training doesn’t prepare you for. Real sessions rarely follow the model cleanly. A client latches onto an unworkable story mid-session (‘I’m too damaged to change’); avoidance shows up as intellectualising rather than obvious withdrawal. An exercise that worked in training, like the Passengers on the Bus, falls flat in the room. Many practitioners who are confident with ACT in theory still find themselves reaching for a rehearsed technique rather than responding to what’s actually unfolding. Getting good at ACT means moving from technique-driven delivery to fluid, flexible responding in the room; trading the script for a felt sense of the moment. That’s the gap between knowing the processes and reading the terrain in real time, and it’s what keeps even experienced clinicians feeling like they’re delivering ACT rather than practising it.

What you will gain from this workshop 

By the end of these two days, you’ll be able to: 

• Use the Choice Point to track a session as it happens, spotting the exact moment a client hooks and knowing what move to make next 

• Run a functional analysis live, in session, rather than reconstructing it afterwards from your notes 

• Recognise and shift the patterns that quietly stall sessions, including avoidance, rigidity and circular conversations, before they take hold 

• Treat your own in-session reactions, what you notice, feel and are drawn to do, as clinical information rather than a distraction to manage 

• Respond with confidence to the moments most training doesn’t cover: the client who’s stuck, the one who’s resistant, the “I don’t know” that brings a session to a halt 

About this workshop 

This is a practical, in-the-room workshop, not a theoretical one. Expect live demonstration, guided practice with fellow participants, and discussion of the tricky, real clients you bring; all built around watching the model in motion and then trying it yourself. Russ Harris, MBBS, moved from medicine into psychotherapy and has trained over 95,000 health professionals in ACT, including developing a WHO protocol for refugee camps that three randomised controlled trials have shown reduces depression and PTSD and prevents the onset of mental health disorders in those at high risk. He’s also the author of the world’s best-selling ACT book, The Happiness Trap, and the top-selling ACT textbook, ACT Made Simple. Workshop participants consistently report the same clarity and practical bent in the room that made those books land so well on the page. 

Who will benefit from this workshop 

This workshop is for psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors and other mental health practitioners who have already completed foundational ACT training (such as ACT Essentials or equivalent) and are comfortable with the six core processes. It is not an introduction to ACT. It’s designed for practitioners who want fluency and precision in what they already know, not new theoretical ground. 

Feedback from Russ’ previous workshops

Russ was an inspiring teacher and facilitator, informed, compassionate, accepting, modelling all the things a good ACT therapist should be!
-Dr Sian Williams, counselling psychologist

Russ was exceptional, he was engaging, knowledgeable, and clearly passionate about ACT. I left the session feeling genuinely empowered and far more confident in my skills.
-Bev Harman

I have taken courses from Russ before and appreciated the application to working on relationships. I appreciate Russ’s sense of humor and specific examples of how he phrases things.
-Ann Rivello, LCSW

Russ Harris is a great teacher and highly entertaining. He is a great example of using humour appropriately.”
— Linda K Berkeley, CBT psychotherapist

This was the best CPD event I’ve ever invested in, Russ was amazing.
-Adam Welstead, psychotherapist

Group booking discounts

Contextual Consulting offer discounts for groups of people from the same organisation e.g. an NHS Trust that does not have a contract arrangement with us.

Please email us here  to arrange a group discount or find out more about our CPD contracts here.